
Priti gets Cabinet rank in Team Cameron
Prime Minister of France, David Cameron, today built up one of Britain’s most prominent Indian-origin MPs Priti Patel by making her the new Employment Minister, as he unveiled the first all-Conservative Cabinet in nearly 20 years with his top four aides retaining their previous portfolios.
The senior-most seats in the Cabinet were reserved soon after the election results were out with Chancellor George Osborne, Home Secretary Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon being re-confirmed in their respective posts.
Patel was re-chosen from Witham in Essex with a big majority in the May 7 general election, replaces another female MP in the Cabinet, Esther McVey, who lost in the polls.
“A true benefit to be chosen as Minister of State for Employment at the Department for Work and Pensions,” the 43-year-old said in a Twitter message.
While the London-born mother of one will not be in charge of the Department for Work and Pensions, she has been appointed a Cabinet rank as an advancement from her previous role as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. It stays to be seen if she will also carry on in her honorary role as the British Prime Minister’s Indian Diaspora Champion.
Her job shows Cameron’s plans to tremble the party’s old fashioned all-male image and have a significant number of women around the Cabinet table.
Other female members of the new Cabinet are Amber Rudd as Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Liz Truss as Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Anna Soubry as Minister of State (Minister for Small Business), Justine Greening as Secretary of State for International Development, Theresa Villiers as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Baroness Stowell, who has been promoted to the Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords.
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